Chile Forum

Chile Forum in English for Gringos, Expatriates, and Travelers to Exchange Ideas and Information about Chile, South America. For more than a decade, the Chile Forum has been the center for expats to share their collective knowledge and experience about living in Chile. The Chile Forum is a free community service brought to you by the law office of Spencer Global.

When I go the gym, I always see people laying around looking at their phones. I just don't get it.

“Now it’s conspiracy – they’ve made that something that should not even be entertained for a minute, that powerful people might get together and have a plan. Doesn’t happen, you’re a kook, you’re a conspiracy buff!” – George Carlin

I've actually been saying this for a while now, there is a huge mental health epidemic coming across the world with this new technology. I've deleted my facebook and Instagram accounts a few months ago, . I can see how it becomes an addiction you only have to look at everyone hooked, all walking around hunched over in the streets or in the cafes not even talking just tapping away. Im even toying with the idea of going back to an un smart phone, I just don't like the idea being a slave to a piece of technology, which is what so many have become with the smart phone. I remember my dad always used to joke that they will put microchips in everyone to track is all in the future, guess what? We don't need them under our skin or forcebly inserted we all carry them around voluntary letting our every movement be tracked.
I'm limiting my use of them and have begun to leave the phone at home when we go out as a family as well as other steps, to set an example, no point lecturing on screen time if I'm on it a lot. I think we are doing ok with our kids so far, but it's hard when you see so many other parents letting their kids have free reign, we just explain why their are limits on it etc.

In the Lakes Region Chile for 6 years. It looks like New Zealand in some ways, and is nearly at the bottom of the world too, but there the similarities end.

41southchile wrote:I remember my dad always used to joke that they will put microchips in everyone to track is all in the future, guess what? We don't need them under our skin or forcebly inserted we all carry them around voluntary letting our every movement be tracked.

Yeah, I just call 'em what they are: portable surveillance devices.

“Now it’s conspiracy – they’ve made that something that should not even be entertained for a minute, that powerful people might get together and have a plan. Doesn’t happen, you’re a kook, you’re a conspiracy buff!” – George Carlin

41southchile wrote:I've actually been saying this for a while now, there is a huge mental health epidemic coming across the world with this new technology. I've deleted my facebook and Instagram accounts a few months ago, . I can see how it becomes an addiction you only have to look at everyone hooked, all walking around hunched over in the streets or in the cafes not even talking just tapping away. Im even toying with the idea of going back to an un smart phone, I just don't like the idea being a slave to a piece of technology, which is what so many have become with the smart phone. I remember my dad always used to joke that they will put microchips in everyone to track is all in the future, guess what? We don't need them under our skin or forcebly inserted we all carry them around voluntary letting our every movement be tracked.
I'm limiting my use of them and have begun to leave the phone at home when we go out as a family as well as other steps, to set an example, no point lecturing on screen time if I'm on it a lot. I think we are doing ok with our kids so far, but it's hard when you see so many other parents letting their kids have free reign, we just explain why their are limits on it etc.

I just don't keep anything entertaining there except Instagram which in my case does not have enough content to open it more than once a day.

Modern social networks and many mobile games turn smartphones into carefully optimized slot machines. It's behaviorism 101 – uncertain reward with random intervals. I'd prefer not to fight the schemes created by teams of high-paid marketers that work 40 hours a week on capturing my attention.

Pretty much........I was in a restaurant in Vancouver, full of 25-35 year olds, I have a rule for dining out, no phone for any reason unless you are a cardiac surgeon, I looked around at one point and 7 tables were in sight, every person was on their phone except for one guy glaring across his table at an oblivious young woman engrossed in her phone.......I was stunned and pointed this out to my date, she looked around and said wow she never noticed......I'm sure she checked her phone when she went to the loo.......a table of six across from us had all six texting, I wondered if they were talking to each other......this was a higher end but causal place........many under 30 suffer extreme separation anxiety if without a phone for more than 1 hour......I find this sad

listen to this whiny bunch of x-geners and babyboomers. Get a cell phone you bums!!!

Glad someone posted this article. I read it earlier this week, and have sort of been chewing on this topic for a while now.

Just last week, I was up skiing with my brother at valle nevado. There was table full of American millennials, like college age, just a few tables over out on the deck on a nice day.

We started talking about what was wrong with millennials, well within earshot of them. Don't think they noticed. They were all on their cellphones.

I had been thinking about this, what in particular is different about them? Every generation goes through the 'dam, kids these days' phase.

This time however, there is something qualitatively different.

One thing that both my brother and I, in the course of having hired and fired various millennials, among many other things I have noticed, is there incredible compulsion to change things. Not to make them better, but like to make them their own. Like they are all 5 years old, and due to being extraordinarily sheltered, and perhaps everything that is worth doing has already been done (really the only defense I can come up for most of it), they will screw with things just to experiment. No real thesis as to the outcome, like if I change X than Y will be better. More in a sort of 'hey, think I will touch this hot stove to see what it does' sort of way.

A few examples. Both me and my brother have run in to millennials in our business, that will do the jump up and down, over exited, like puppies waiting on a new chew toy, "say, let's do this, and this, and this, and this" in reference to how we should run our business. No real proposal attached, such as 'this will make you more efficient, or make you more money, or fix whatever'. Just random changes, for the sake of changing things.

Both of us, in our own way, have had to slap them down with a, "if that was a better way to run our business, we would have done it already".

Another example, software. I have seen this crazy trend over the last say 5 years or so, and especially the last couple of years as millennials sort of work their way in to decision making positions, to change things in software that has sometimes worked flawlessly for decades. Everything from trying to redefine what counts as an icon on a cell phone, to rebuilding the very core of Linux that all other opensource projects hang on. Some with near catastrophic results; but, what they often have in common is this total lack of a good argument, or often even a bad argument, for the changes they are making. they are totally arbitrary, in some desperate attempt to put their name on it.

It is like, they never got the chance to hurt themselves as children. Like the helicopter parents took it way too far. I call them "helicopter parents" not because they hover over their kids all the time, but because they call the medevac helicopter the moment their kids get a boo boo.

By contrast, on my 30th birthday, my dad said, "way to go, I didn't think you would live past 18".

He was probably right about that. I grew-up taking way, way too many risks, and had a family that supported and encouraged that (even then, I probably took it too far). My father was in the Marines at 15 on his way to a the South Pacific. He figured if no one was shooting at me (much), then I would probably be o.k.

But at 12, or 15, or 19, if someone asked me why I was doing what I was doing, I could given them a rather long list of reasons, even if they were bad reasons for why I was doing it.

I don't think millennials have learned to think through what they are doing, and I believe in part that is due to a "software" lifestyle. They can play a first-person shooter game, get the same thrill as having an adventure, and simply hit the restart button when they fail. Same with using their cell phone. They can use their cell phone, take social risks, without normal social consequences (or so they think).

What was particularly interesting about this article, shortly after, they came out with this suicide rates in the U.S. hitting their all time recorded high.

Only now, are they starting to realize, there are consequences, and you need to weigh the risk / reward.

That viewpoint carries through to the "social" sphere, where, just because they are now in university, they think they know how to change the world to make it better, despite them having no education, no knowledge of history, no understanding of conscious. This is at least partially instigated by "left-leaning" "liberal" arts academics who have no compunction against destroying to accomplish their goals.

It is a root cause the modern-day "social justice warriors".

I think Camille Paglia mentioned this attitude in one of her videos, though it might have been Jordan Peterson.

It looks to me like the generation below us is going to be a bit smarter than we are. Yes, there are some things a bit better, some a bit worse, but overall you are being a bit harsh.

One problem with not having a smart phone is I believe that you can't use whatssapp if you just have a regular phone and a computer at home, (or can you? is that right?). You may need to be in whatssapp group with other parents at your kids school or the group of your apartment/condominio or work colleagues. It could even lose you a chance to make a new friend if someone offers to connect by whatsapp and then you have to say you don't have it. They hardly know you yet, they are not going to bother to text/call you to get to know you. I can't remember the last time someone in Chile sent me a text message instead of whatsapp. Texts are dead. When they ask if you have whatssapp they expect you to say yes. If you don't that might contribute to a failure to integrate culturally in Chile or at least missing out on a few things. That's the only problem I can think of with not having a smart phone, though.

Well there is one other one, it can very occassionally be useful to have internet access while out.

I have never paid money for a smart phone. Occassionally someone has taken pity on me and given me one at Christmas.

I have been sat in restaurants with my friends in the UK and everyone at the table was on their smart phone but me, and I didn't have one so I just had to sat there and stare at the walls.

I actually dislike smart phones. To me, they are a tool with a practical use. I don't enjoy using them like I do with a computer or a kindle. But at least I don't have to stare at the wall in a social situation.